Tax Risk, Corporate Governance, and the Valuation of Tax Avoidance Across Philippine Firms: How Do Investors Value Corporate Tax Avoidance?

Tax avoidance has traditionally been thought to enhance firm value because it generates cash savings for reinvestment or distribution to shareholders. More recent literature, however, suggests that tax avoidance valuation may not be so simple. Desai and Dharmapala (2009) introduced the “agency perspective” on tax avoidance, arguing that investors consider the risk of tax avoidance as opening opportunities for managers to extract rents from their firms. Positive tax avoidance value would therefore be conditional on good corporate governance quality. Drake et al. (2017) introduced yet another dimension—tax risk—to the valuation of tax avoidance, arguing that tax avoidance that comes with less variability in tax outcomes (i.e., comes with lower tax risk) should be preferred to those that come with more because investors prefer stable earnings over risky earnings. This policy brief discusses our findings on how public investors in the Philippines value corporate tax avoidance in the contexts of tax risk and corporate governance quality, and policies that can be implemented to enhance firm transparency, increase tax revenues, and raise firm valuations

A Phase 1a/1b Clinical Trial Design to Assess Safety, Acceptability, Pharmacokinetics and Tolerability of Intranasal Q-Griffithsin for COVID-19 Prophylaxis

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic remains an ongoing threat to global public health. Q-Griffithsin (Q-GRFT) is a lectin that has demonstrated potent broad-spectrum inhibitory activity in preclinical studies in models of Nipah virus and the beta coronaviruses SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2. Methods: Here, we propose a clinical trial design to test the safety, pharmacokinetics (PK), and tolerability of intranasally administered Q-GRFT for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection as a prophylaxis strategy. The initial Phase 1a study will assess the safety and PK of a single dose of intranasally administered Q-GRFT. If found safe, the safety, PK, and tolerability of multiple doses of intranasal Q-GRFT will be assessed in a Phase 1b study. Group 1 participants will receive 3 mg of intranasal Q-GRFT (200 μL/nostril) once daily for 7 days. If this dose is tolerated, participants will be enrolled in Group 2 to receive 3 mg twice daily for 7 days. Secondary endpoints of the study will be user perceptions, acceptability, and the impact of product use on participants’ olfactory sensation and quality of life. Discussion: Results from this study will support further development of Q-GRFT as a prophylactic against respiratory viral infections in future clinical trials

Réponses écotoxicologiques d’un cocktail de polluants

International audienc

Electrostatic template-assisted deposition of microparticles on electrospun nanofibers: towards microstructured functional biochips for screening applications

Electrostatic Template-Assisted Deposition (ETAD) of microparticles is described as a new process to control the deposition of microparticles by electrospraying onto a substrate.</p

Réponses écotoxicologiques d’un cocktail de polluants

International audienc

Réponses écotoxicologiques d’un cocktail de polluants

International audienc

Electrostatic template-assisted deposition of microparticles on electrospun nanofibers: towards microstructured functional biochips for screening applications

Electrostatic Template-Assisted Deposition (ETAD) of microparticles is described as a new process to control the deposition of microparticles by electrospraying onto a substrate. It relies on the construction of an electrostatic template by electrospinning a thin layer of fibers onto a micropatterned collector. Because the fibers cannot release their charges when they are suspended over cavities of the micropatterned collector, an electrostatic template is formed with repulsive and attractive domains. This electrostatic template is then used to guide precisely the particle deposition during the electrospraying step. Microstructured bi-layer composites with a great variety of micropatterns can thus be elaborated with any kind of materials allowing the use of the ETAD process for a wide range of applications. As a proof of concept, the ETAD process was applied for the production of composite scaffolds with poly(ε-caprolactone) nanofibers covered by a micropatterned layer of hydroxyapatite. This scaffold was then embedded in a biochip containing 21 wells and used for MG-63 cell proliferation and mineralization studies, showing their possible application in the screening of the scaffold structure for tissue engineering

Agonist anti-ChemR23 mAb reduces tissue neutrophil accumulation and triggers chronic inflammation resolution

Agonistic proresolutive monoclonal antibody reverses chronic inflammation.</jats:p